If Sir Alex Ferguson proves good to his word — and a few stranger things have happened in football over the years — by ensuring that Wayne Rooney is still at Old Trafford next season, the man he once described as this country’s answer to Pelé seems unlikely to be accorded star billing.

The England striker lived up to Ferguson’s rather crude characterisation of being an individual who “sells papers” by scoring within 11 minutes of his return to Manchester United’s starting line-up, but thereafter did little to attract the attention of the headline writers, never mind anyone in the circulation department.